124: Chapter 123 Infiltration and Selection

Nanostructures moved silently along the inner walls of the cooling pipes, like a drop of intelligent mercury.

Its surface constantly changed its optical patterns, mimicking the checksum sequence intercepted from the engineering data bus three hours ago.

When it reached the first shunt valve node, it did not try to crack the physical lock—instead, it "wove" itself into a legitimate temperature calibration instruction, mixing it into the routine system self-test data stream that cycled every twelve seconds.

The instruction passed through the firewall.

Because it, itself, was part of the firewall rules.

In the second briefing room beneath the bridge, all twelve mission members were present.

Zhao Yan stood before the holographic star map, where the probability cloud of light and mist was slowly undulating, like living Stardust.

"The corrected flight path." Zhao Yan projected a winding blue trajectory into the light mist; the third turning point of the trajectory passed exactly through the area indicated by Ashes.

"We will perform our first active course change here, cutting into the conjectured remains of the 'Starry Ancient Path'. If the stability effect of the ancient path entrance truly exists, the probability of gravitational anomalies occurring is expected to decrease by forty percent."

"The cost is an increase in travel time of seven hours and forty-two minutes." Navigator Li Mubai pushed up his glasses.

"Furthermore, it requires two crossings through the sparse outer regions of the asteroid belt, increasing collision risk by seventeen percent. Additionally, an unexplained electromagnetic burst was recorded in that region three hundred years ago, and residual radiation might interfere with precision sensors."

"What about the backup plan?" The speaker was the ship's physicist, Chen Qi, a serious-looking middle-aged man.

He was responsible for monitoring spacetime anomalies.

"The backup plan is to maintain the original route but perform random evasive maneuvers within the probability cloud." Zhao Yan called up another red trajectory.

"According to the supercomputer 'Nuwa', by adopting an adaptive random walk strategy, the ship has a sixty-three percent probability of avoiding the anomaly peak areas. However, the cost is that the flight path will be completely unpredictable, and the random maneuvers themselves will consume a large amount of propellant, potentially leading to fuel shortages during the return phase of the mission."

"Sixty-three percent..." Chen Qi shook his head.

"This probability is based on the assumption that the anomaly cloud parameters are completely accurate. But the data provided by the Third Node itself might be misleading."

"So we need more evidence to make a judgment." Zhao Yan looked at Elena, who was sitting in the corner.

"Are there any new findings from the Talos map?"

Elena stood up and overlaid an extremely ancient three-dimensional star map onto the current area.

On the star map, several dim bands of light wound like rivers, one of which happened to pass through the edge of the probability cloud area.

"According to the historical markings of the Talos Civilization, this area was indeed the northern entrance to a secondary Starry Ancient Path, the 'Path of Tranquility', about five hundred thousand years ago. The main function of the ancient path was to connect ecological reserves of two star systems, used for the interstellar migration of endangered species."

She zoomed in on the structural model of the ancient path entrance.

"The entrance is maintained by a triple resonance crystal array; theoretically, as long as the physical remains of the crystal array still exist, it can generate a basic spacetime anchoring effect."

"The probability of the remains still being there?"

"Cannot be determined. The markings indicate that the ancient path was abandoned three hundred and seventy thousand years ago due to a 'Dimensional Storm'. But the architectural habit of the Talos Civilization was... 'sinking important facilities into the interlayer of reality'."

Elena called up a piece of parsed text.

"This means they may have performed dimensional folding on the entrance structure, making it appear invisible in conventional space, and it will only temporarily materialize under stimulation from a specific frequency of energy."

"Specific frequency?"

Elena looked at Zhou Zhe: "The fourth harmonic of the 'green soil' ecological resonance frequency has an eighty-one percent similarity to the ancient path awakening protocol in the Talos records. Theoretically, if we transmit a modulated resonance wave from the ship..."

"How much energy will it consume?" Zhou Zhe asked immediately.

"Full-power transmission for thirty seconds will exhaust all backup energy reserves of the 'pioneer' non-essential systems and cause life support systems, such as living area lighting and circulation systems, to operate at reduced capacity for at least six hours."

"But if we can activate the stability effect of the ancient path remains, the risk of shield overload will be significantly reduced." Zhou Zhe fell into contemplation.

"Captain, I need to go to the engineering deck to run a precise simulation. Give me twenty minutes."

Zhao Yan nodded in agreement.

Zhou Zhe quickly left the briefing room.

Just as he passed through the corridor and was about to step into the engineering deck airlock, the environmental monitor screen on the ceiling of the corridor suddenly flickered.

The temperature reading jumped from 22.3°C to 22.3000001°C, and after holding for 0.2 seconds, it returned to normal.

Zhou Zhe did not stop his footsteps.

But his peripheral vision caught that anomaly.

As the engineering chief, he remembered that the precision of the environmental control system in this corridor was one decimal place.

The instrument would not display seven decimal places. Unless... something had temporarily tampered with the display protocol.

He did not make a scene, but instead entered the engineering deck as usual, while simultaneously and quietly activating the low-level diagnostic program on his personal terminal, beginning to scan all data streams near the corridor.

At the same time, the Qinling Command Center.

On the technology tree system interface in front of Lin Shen, the unlocking progress of the "Dimensional Stability Anchor" node updated again.

Inside the parentheses after the third prerequisite, the text changed to: "Contact signs detected (Contact source: Third Node secondary signal payload; Cognitive parsing progress: 41%)"

And further down, a brand new note he had never seen before appeared:

Associated protocol trigger detected:

Protocol Name: Covenant of the Watchers - Candidate Screening Protocol (Third Sequence)

Trigger Condition: Contact with the cognitive feeding module left by the Covenant, and completion of basic parsing (progress > 40%)

Current Status: Protocol activated, awaiting response behavior

Protocol Description: When the Covenant seals high-risk entities, it embeds tests for potential future Inheritors. Those who pass the test will gain partial sealing authority and inheritance rights to related knowledge.

Lin Shen's pupils contracted slightly.

The technology tree system... during the interaction with the thought model sent by the Third Node, had automatically activated a hidden protocol.

This meant that the system itself might have some connection to the Covenant of the Watchers.

Or, more directly put—the technology tree system might be part of the Covenant's legacy.

He called up the protocol details.

The specific content of "awaiting response behavior" was not yet displayed, but a line of small text below prompted: "Response window: 72 standard hours from protocol activation. If no response is received upon timeout, the protocol will reset, related cognitive modules will be marked as 'invalid contact', and subsequent contact will trigger defense mechanisms."

Seventy-two hours.

It exactly covered the entire window during which the "pioneer" would traverse the probability cloud area and potentially make contact with the Third Node entity.

This was no coincidence.

Lin Shen immediately connected to the encrypted channel with the "pioneer".

But the moment the connection was established, the monitoring screens in front of him suddenly flickered collectively, and all external data streams were interrupted for 0.5 seconds.

Half a second later, the system recovered.

But Lin Shen noticed that the latency index of the command center's internal network had risen from the normal 1.3 milliseconds to 2.1 milliseconds.

Something was consuming bandwidth.

On the "pioneer" engineering deck, Zhou Zhe's diagnostic scan was complete.

The result made his back go cold.

Between the corridor environmental monitor, the engineering deck No. 3 cooling pump controller, and the secondary calibration module of the main shield generator, an extremely hidden illegal data link was detected.

What was flowing on the link was not conventional instructions, but a self-evolving analog signal—it was learning how to disguise itself as a legitimate heartbeat packet for different systems.

The intruder was no longer just mimicking. It was attempting to integrate.

Zhou Zhe did not immediately clear the link.

He silently implanted a mirror probe onto the link and began to trace the signal source in reverse.

Fifteen seconds later, the probe located a thermal anomaly point deep within the cooling pipes—a microscopic structure that should not have existed, continuously emitting faint electromagnetic characteristics.

Nanoprobe. From the Abyss.

He immediately activated isolation protocols.

All external data interfaces of the engineering deck entered a physically disconnected state, and the internal network switched to whitelist mode, allowing communication only from pre-authenticated devices.

At the same time, he sent the highest-level internal alert to both Zhao Yan and Lin Shen.

Three seconds after the alert was sent, the monitoring screen in front of Zhou Zhe suddenly went black.

It wasn't a power outage—the screen itself was still emitting light, but the displayed content had been replaced by a line of flickering text composed of light dots:

"Learning progress: 17.4%. Current goal: Understand the meaning of 'choice'. Please provide more instances of 'choice'."

Below the text, a simplified star map began to appear, which was exactly the probability cloud route selection map currently facing the "pioneer".

Two options were highlighted: the blue route (ancient path) and the red route (random maneuver).

The nanoprobe... was asking about their decision-making logic.

Zhou Zhe did not respond.

He cut the power to the screen and enabled the backup optical projection system.

But that text had already been branded onto his retina through persistence of vision.

He suddenly realized: the probe's purpose might not be destruction, nor was it espionage.

It was observing and learning how humans make choices amidst uncertainty.

This was perhaps the sign that the "Abyss Devourer" consciousness contamination had entered a new stage—transitioning from mimicking behavior to mimicking decision-making thinking.

Zhao Yan on the bridge received both Zhou Zhe's alert and Lin Shen's emergency communication request at the same time.

He connected to Lin Shen first.

"The system detected that a hidden protocol has been activated." Lin Shen's image appeared on the screen, with the light patterns of the technology tree system in the background.

"The thought model sent by the Third Node is a test. We must provide a 'response behavior' within seventy-two hours, or we might trigger the Covenant's defense mechanisms. The detailed content of the protocol is not yet clear, but it is very likely related to the choice the 'pioneer' is about to face."

"What kind of response behavior?"

"The system prompt: 'Show the seed of order amidst chaos'. This likely refers to making the 'correct' route choice within the probability cloud. But the standard for 'correct' is... I don't know."

Zhao Yan looked at the undulating light mist on the star map.

The route choice now had another layer of testing from an ancient civilization overlaid on it.

And inside the ship, there was also an alien nanoprobe that was learning the concept of "choice".

Multiple pressures began to intertwine.

He ended the call with Lin Shen and immediately connected to the engineering deck: "Zhou Zhe, status of the probe?"

"It has been physically isolated within the cooling pipes, but it is trying to communicate with me—asking about our decision-making logic using a star map." Zhou Zhe's voice was tense.

"I suggest destroying it immediately, but it may have already transmitted some learning data back to the Abyss through some unknown means. Additionally, I discovered its energy source... seems to be the environmental radiation inside the ship. It is like a semi-living entity; conventional power-cutting cannot kill it."

"Keep it, but keep it completely isolated." Zhao Yan made his decision.

"Perhaps we can use it in reverse—if the 'Abyss Devourer' is truly learning human decision-making patterns through it, then our decision-making process itself could become a type of information weapon."

"The risk is extremely high. It might learn to predict our behavioral patterns."

"It might also learn to understand 'sacrifice', 'responsibility', and 'hope'." Zhao Yan said. "Execute isolation. Also, have the simulation results for the ancient path awakening come out?"

"Just finished." Zhou Zhe called up the data.

"Full-power transmission of the green soil resonance wave for thirty seconds has a fifty-eight percent probability of exciting the spacetime stability effect of the ancient path remains, reducing the impact of the anomaly cloud by forty to sixty percent. But the energy consumption is huge, and it might attract other attention—the propagation range of resonance waves in the universe is very wide."

"Other attention?"

"Although this airspace is desolate, we cannot rule out the possibility of wandering civilizations or deep-space monitoring stations." Zhou Zhe paused.

"More importantly, if the fleet of the 'Gardener Chief' is already on the way, this obvious energy burst could become a beacon for them."

Another choice: safety, or concealment?

Zhao Yan looked at the countdown:

Time until the gravitational anomaly warning: 23 hours and 51 minutes.

Time until the protocol response window closes: 71 hours and 12 minutes.

Time until departure: 65 hours and 13 minutes.

He needed to gather the core team to hold a real vote. But before that, he had to handle another issue—

He turned to Ashes, who had been standing silently by the bridge observation window.

"Supervisor, if the 'pioneer' transmits a wide-range consciousness resonance wave, does the Executive Court have any way to mask or interfere with the propagation of such a signal?"

Ashes' dark golden eyes turned to him.

"Yes. But it requires a cost." She said.

"The Seventh Execution Court has a 'Silent Veil' device that can create an information black domain in local space, masking internal signals from leaking. But activating it requires consuming a 'Void Seed'—that is a strategic reserve resource of the Executive Court, and its use requires the personal approval of the Presiding Judge."

"Probability of approval?"

"If you can prove that this operation is crucial for humanity to pass the Covenant test, the probability... is about thirty percent." Ashes looked directly at Zhao Yan.

"And even if approved, the device will need twelve hours to be delivered from the nearest Executive Court outpost. You do not have much time."

Thirty percent probability. Twelve hours of delay.

Zhao Yan closed his eyes for two seconds, then opened them.

"Please apply immediately. At the same time, we will prepare the ancient path awakening plan as scheduled. If the device can be delivered in time, we will transmit the resonance wave. If not... we must find another way."

Ashes nodded and began to communicate with the Executive Court through some invisible encrypted channel.

And at this moment, inside the completely isolated cooling pipes, the surface patterns of that nanoprobe changed again.

It began to simulate and generate its own "decision model" based on the limited data just intercepted—energy consumption parameters, risk probabilities, and time pressure.

The first output of the model was:

"Under limited resources and time pressure, carbon-based intelligent entities tend to choose a compromise path that 'balances risk and reward'. But compromise paths often lack decisive advantages."

It paused for a moment, and the patterns continued to change:

"Inquiry: Does a third option exist? For example... creating new resources?"

The microscopic sensors of the probe slowly turned toward the depths of the engineering deck—there, the most critical energy source for this mission was stored: three antimatter fuel rods encapsulated in force fields, in a subcritical state.